


Take care of him

by egmon73



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Injury, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 21:03:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12779460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/egmon73/pseuds/egmon73
Summary: English translation of "Prenditi cura di lui". Mycroft, Greg and a big problem.....





	Take care of him

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [prenditi cura di lui](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12605212) by [Plateja13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plateja13/pseuds/Plateja13). 
  * A translation of [prenditi cura di lui](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12605212) by [Plateja13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plateja13/pseuds/Plateja13). 



> This is a translation of the work of Plateja13 "prenditi cura di lui", originally in Italian, that Daynaan and I made in order to make this lovely story available to a broader audience. We thank our very patient beta lavender_and_vanilla who painstakingly corrected all my English mistakes..... (the remaining ones are all my fault)  
> \--------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
> Plateja13's words:  
> This is my first fanfiction.  
> With all my love for Greg and Mycroft  
> Sherlock’s characters are property of BBC Gatiss and Moffat

 

**" _Take care of him, he's not as strong as he thinks he is ..."_** _  
Sherlock's words echoed back, like a litany or a song. Each time it happened they caused him a strange ~~heat~~ warm feeling, right there, in the chest, where the heart is hidden. They made him feel somewhat important. _ Feel loved. Feel part of their family.

_It was a nonsense, of course: the Holmes were a granite block, united by a strength of feelings beyond conceivable. In truth they themselves were inconceivable, with their acute minds, their eyes that perceived what others could not even  imagine and their controversial sense of humor._

__  
But Sherlock had told him of the descent into madness they had to go through following the orders of their deranged lunatic of a sister, Eurus.  
It was with a naturalness, simplicity, and almost carelessness, Sherlock told him how both he and Mycroft had put their lives on the line in order save the other one.  
How the powerful and mysterious Mycroft had asked to die in order to save Sherlock's best friend.  
How the problematic investigative genius had threatened to take his own life in order to avoid killing his brother.

At that thought, Greg Lestrade felt the umpteenth shiver run down his spine. The rain had been falling down uninterrupted for hours, and the wipers in the old car were struggling to free the rear window from the freezing water.

  
_It took some time to coordinate the teams - a whole army coming from all over the country- to sort out Sherrinford's unspeakable mess. It took endless days of work, interrupted by a few hours of sleep on the office’s old couch. Regular lunches and dinners were skipped; hunger was calmed only with insipid and heavy sandwiches. But he went on, with that request, “Take care of him”, always present in his mind, almost giving him comfort._

__  
And finally, after weeks of hesitation, he made up his mind. **"Take care of him.”** He felt a little guilty not to have run to Mycroft immediately. **"Take care of him."** Mycroft had been admitted to a super-exclusive clinic, and it was very difficult to reach him. He repeated this to himself to justify his delay. Then Mycroft came back to his big mansion in the countryside around London. **“Take care of him.”** He certainly didn’t need an old and tired DI around him ...but they were all excuses he really didn’t want to believe. ~~  
~~

When Greg Lestrade got to Holmes's property, he parked the car outside the gate. He quickly noticed something was wrong. After all had happened, the security around Mr. Holmes should have been at the highest level, however no one was around.

  
He ran across the gravel path, the rain becoming thicker. A distant still vaguely perceptible alarm bell began ringing. He knocked, but no one answered. Yet Holmes had to be at home.  
He looked more carefully and realized that the massive entrance door was not completely closed. There could have been thousands of logical explanations for it, but at that moment none came into his mind. He took another look around, then pushed the door open and went in.

  
Mycroft had been standing for hours in the Armory Room, the oldest and most elegant room of his mansion. He was sitting in his favorite armchair as if in a protective cocoon, his face lit only by the flames of the fireplace. His eyes followed the flames’ dance and the little sparks that were getting lost in the air around.

  
Empty.

  
He felt like an empty shell and his mind full of nothing, thinking how everything he did in his life had been wrong.

He had been an idealist when he agreed to carry the enormous burden that Uncle Rudy had given to him. He had done his best. Tried to be gentle. Sacrificed everything. For Country and Family. Then he found out in the worst way that everything he had done was wrong. Sherlock had risked his life, and Mycroft’s family had disowned him.  
And maybe he had hurt Eurus herself...

He should have done more, he should have loved her more. He should have acted as a brother not as the English Government. He should have loved them more.  
A lonely tear hidden in the remote corner of his eye refused to fall. Even on the edge of nothingness, he was holding the ice man's mask on.

  
A discreet cough made him jerk with surprise. He turned quickly to scrutinize the shadow in the room. There was a tall figure standing near the entrance of the room, looking tired. Hesitant.  
He recognized him immediately, and, in spite of himself, he felt a wave of heat in his chest. Where there should have been a heart …

  
"Lestrade? What are you doing here?" He said with a voice, hoarse and fierce.

  
"I’m sorry to bother you, Mycroft. But I tried to knock several times and nobody answered."

  
Mycroft rose clumsily from the chair. Perhaps he drank too much, or perhaps he had been sitting longer than he liked. He waved his hand: "No, no, no problem. It's just that I am surprised that my security didn’t inform ~~ed~~ me about your arrival ... "

  
Greg took a few steps toward the fireplace. In the flickering light, the two men stared into each other’s eyes. "There isn’t security outside. There was no one..." Lestrade said hesitantly.

  
Mycroft could not answer, because the explosion engulfed him.

  
In the moments immediately before losing his senses, he saw the whole movie of his life: his siblings; that day at the sea; and his mum and dad, young and happy. The tears began to gush, but the heat of the burning fire in the room made them evaporate in an instant. Leaving his eyes dry, as dry as his life. Then the merciful darkness embraced him.

_They had an argument, as always, because he had discovered her continued cheating.  
But this time it had been different. She didn’t cry, swearing that it was just a sudden whim. She did not whisper in his ear that he was her only love, that no other man would be able to hold a candle to him._

_  
This time she cried out at him that the gym instructor was a real man who had made her feel like a true woman ... “Too many truths all at once”, he thought. She threw a few dresses and other things into a travel bag, and left slamming the door without even a goodbye._

_  
Only a bottle of bad quality whiskey was left to cling to and the service gun looking at him. He was sure it was looking at him, inviting him to a fiery kiss and to an eternal farewell. The cold  barrel was in his mouth ..._

Greg woke up from the nightmare with a scream, and then was overwhelmed by a series of coughing fits. There was a smell of smoke. It was hot and there was a rustling crackling of flames. Where the hell was he? Certainly not at home, surely not in the office.

  
Then slowly he began to remember. Of course, he was at Mycroft's home. There had been an explosion. That's why there were no security guards. They had been probably killed by the bombers. Damn! He should have seen it.

  
His eyes begun checking his surroundings. Fire outbreaks could be seen here and there in the ruins of Mycroft's house were being extinguished. Probably due to the family history with fire, the elder of the Holmes had renovated the house using the latest technology and the rain falling through the breaks in the roof had done the rest.

  
Mycroft.

  
This thought crossed his mind like a flash. Where did he end up?

  
"Mycroft? Mycroft, where are you? Are you okay?" He yelled into the darkness surrounding him.

  
Silence.

  
Then he heard a sinister creaking.

  
Obviously the bearing walls had been seriously damaged by the explosion, and they were very likely to support the house only for a little while longer. He stood up and took a few steps, uncertain that he was still in one piece. God knows who protected him from the explosion... Maybe his damned good luck did it.  
The rain shower outside had turned into a thunderstorm, and the lightning helped him to see the disaster surrounding him inside. Nothing of the elegant Mycroft’s room was spared, there was only destruction. And ruins.

  
And Mycroft was still missing.

  
The groans increased, and some pieces of burned wood almost touched him. The supporting beam was beginning to surrender.

  
"Mycroft!" He yelled again.

  
He heard a sigh between the creaks of the last flames. Then nothing else. Greg got out of the debris surrounding him, following that sound and trying to see something in the darkness.  
The majestic and powerful lightning illuminating the scene left him in shock. One of the precious ancient weapons, a lance, which had adorned the room, had been torn from the wall by the force of the explosion. By a wicked twist of fate it had reached Mycroft, piercing him.

"Oh Holy Heaven, Mycroft." The Inspector rushed to the lifeless body of the politician. Mycroft had his eyes closed and he seemed not to breathe. The spear had pierced his chest, but there was almost no blood around it.

  
"Mycroft, Mycroft wake up for heaven’s sake!"

  
"Go away, Inspector. The bearing walls will give in soon and everything will collapse." The older man's voice was nothing more than a whisper.

  
"No. No way, Mycroft! The spear has stopped the loss of blood, probably. I have already seen such an accident, a construction worker pierced by an iron rod. It's an awkward operation but you can get through it ... "

  
A hoarse giggle, interrupted by a cough, was the answer of the man. "Leave me, Lestrade. Save yourself. As you can see my legs are pinned by the table. It is massive and made of very heavy oak. You can’t move it on your own and according to my calculations, the walls are going to collapse within ... "

  
"Hush up Mycroft, this is an emergency. We don’t need your damn logic. We need courage and hope. And I’ve got plenty of them, for both of us."

  
"Lestrade.. Listen to me. Do not waste your time and your energy with a dead man like I am." A cough interrupted him, then he continued with a broken voice: "I do not believe in destiny, but in this instance I am inclined to change my mind. The spear that has pierced my chest is a historical relic which belonged to an ancestor of mine, and it is said that he used it in battle to enforce justice in his lands. It is the right punishment for me for not having been fully honest with my family - with my siblings and with my parents ..." His voice  fading.

  
Greg looked around, searching for something that could be useful to him. "Don’t say such rubbish, Mycroft. Throughout my life I've never met a man whom was more devoted to justice than you. Beyond any sacrifice, beyond any imagination."

  
"Tell that to my sister..." Mycroft whispered, and, in the flicker of the lightning, a tear shone on his cheek.

  
"No, I am telling it to all the Londoners, to all the inhabitants of this country, to all the people on this damn planet, who still have a life because of your sacrifice and your work. I don’t pretend ~~not~~ to know who you really are, Mycroft. I buy the story of your being a 'minor official of the British government' as it pleases you to have people believe this about you. But you are an honest man and what you did to your siblings had to be done. Do not try to fool me or yourself."

  
Mycroft's eyes softened slightly. "Since Sherlock and Eurus were born I have always wanted to protect them.  It was a duty for me, but also a joy, because I have always loved them immensely ... "

  
Greg felt his heart tighten. Mycroft was slowly passing away…..

He had to do something. His phone had fallen from his pocket and God knows where it had ended up in the ruins. Surely all of Holmes' house landlines were disconnected. Mycroft's manor was isolated, but with some luck someone in the neighborhood heard the explosion. Maybe someone had called for first aid.

  
Maybe..

  
Greg realized that he was totally alone and that realization overwhelmed him like a wave of terror. It was only a moment, then he tightened his fists. He would save Mycroft as Mycroft had saved him. That man was the real reason he lived. The memory of the nightmare was still fresh in his mind. That day, the day in which Helen had left him forever, had really brought him to the brink of death. He still felt the cold barrel of his gun on his lips …

  
Then his memory had always stopped at that point. But in that moment, within Holmes' house debris and the flashing lightning in the sky, he remembered it all. A quiet, earnest voice. Sweet.

  
_"Come on Lestrade, I cannot believe that a man like you wants to give up. I do not want to believe it ... "_

  
Greg had never understood where the hell Mycroft Holmes came from that day. How did he get into Greg’s house? And how could he have known Greg was going to end his life? He asked himself these questions once, before deleting the memory.

  
He asked himself it again in that moment. "Mycroft. Why were you in my house that day? "His voice was calm, his eyes wide open.

  
The pierced man sighed, and a sweet, melancholy smile softened his lips. He did not ask what day Lestrade was referring to. He knew it, he had always kept it in his heart like a little warm treasure.  
"I always know everything about the people I care about. Or almost always, with Eurus I did not succeed ..."

  
That was enough. A simple, small, pained sentence coming out from the lips of a dying man. It gave him life. This time the flames seemed to flare up in Greg's heart and burned, giving him energy and strength. Strength that comes to those who are loved.

  
"Come on Mycroft. Be brave. Do it for me. Do it for us ... " There was an infinite warmth in his words, because they were natural and honest.

  
The eyes of the other man, which were closed, suddenly opened again. There was a new sweetness in them.

.  
"I ... Oh Greg. You are giving me a huge gift. That's enough to let me die in peace." Mycroft's voice was a just whisper. "But now go away please. The roof will collapse soon and I do not want you to die. Please…"

  
Greg kneeled near Mycroft. The oak table was heavy on his legs and it was not possible to move it all alone. Then he noticed another thing above Mycroft, something the darkness had previously concealed.  
One of the large wooden panels that decorated the walls of the room had been detached due to the explosion and got stuck in the opposite corner, supported at the base by large pieces of one of the marble columns of the room. A sort of shield that - with a little luck - would bear the collapse.

  
Greg smiled. He moved even closer to Mycroft He moved under that, maybe dreamed, maybe real, shelter. The other man looked at him with ~~his~~ burning eyes. Far away, the sound of a siren was clear and unmistakable amidst the roar of the thunder. A lot of sirens.

  
Greg caressed Mycroft's pale face, then gently kissed his dry lips. “Hold on Mycroft,”  he whispered in the man’s ear. "I cannot believe a man like you is going to give up. I don’t want to believe it. Give me this gift. Hold on.” “That spear is telling you to do the right thing. Do it for us."

  
Mycroft found the strength to squeeze Greg’s hand and smiled at him. One always smiles at hope.

 


End file.
